You're absolutely right in that you have to go to the
places where the shortages are.
Come to Maryland or Virginia...I hire teachers for a
living and we are ALWAYS looking for HQ teachers who truly
care for children, have good references and are well-
trained. You can visit the state DOE websites to see our
critical shortage areas. If you are a good teacher, you
can find a job in MD or VA. We pay well, we have great
benefits and the quality of life is good here. We hire
more than 50% of our new secondary and special ed teachers
from out of state. Teachers from PA, OH, MI and NY flock
to our school systems and have great success.
However, let me add the caveat that even in tight times,
we still want excellent teachers. I can assure you that
there are some folks out there who have been applying to
teach for our school system for the past 3-4 years but who
I will never hire. If they cannot relate to kids, if they
don't have good classroom management skills, if they
cannot present a lesson to our standards and if they have
only 'average' references, I won't be hiring them -- even
in critical shortage areas.
Also, if you are an elementary teacher...you're right.
There isn't a shortage...even in the areas that have huge
critical shortages in other subjects. My advice...work on
getting an endorsement in another subject area...or think
of moving.
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